Those Left Behind
by Dragon Empress
Summary: Then it hits him, a sudden and serious thought, the kind he’s not used to...' Beastboy learns about loss and true friendship the hard way. Again.


ME: Bonjour, all. Yes, I'm aware my TT fanfiction is awful, but this idea bit me one day and then, like an evil puppy of doom, refused to let go…

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN THE TEEN TITANS, FUNNILY ENOUGH. THEN AGAIN, YOU ALREADY KNEW THAT, I'M SURE.

ME: Just a warning, people, this does contain some hints at Raven/Beastboy. So if you don't like that, well, don't flame me just for the Hell of it. That'd just be mean.

- - -

He drinks slowly from his can, letting the coldness slide down his throat, adding to the coldness that was already there. And it's the numb sort, the kind that makes it so much harder to feel anything else at all. The first stage. Or so they say.

Like grief is something so very complicated.

"It's not. Not really."

He looks up, surprised for a minute. Then it registers that he must have said that last part out loud. Without realising. And that's fitting, because right now he's barely realising anything at all.

Robin stands in the doorway, taller somehow than he was before. Taller and older, and just a little bit more worn. There are slashes in his uniform, great and gaping, like he's been off somewhere fighting with monsters. Or maybe he just did it to himself, in a blind fit of rage and self-hatred. Like everything that had happened was all his fault.

Everyone deals with it differently after all.

But still, he sighs and crosses the room, sitting down on the oddly shaped sofa. "Those beers all for you?"

Beastboy sits back and shrugs, like he doesn't care. "You don't drink."

The Boy Wonder sighs, a sound that's like air being let out of a balloon, and says, "I think this is different."

Well, he's bang on the money there. Everything's different now. Everything. Beastboy watches (Even if it doesn't feel real; feels like he's watching from outside his own head) as Robin takes a can in his left hand, whilst placing something on the table with his right.

And it's something special.

"That's…" Beastboy feels now, suddenly, like the earth just split in two beneath him and then crumbled away. Like everything is spinning and bursting into flames, untamed and totally out of control. 

Because on the table now there sits confirmation. And it crushes him. It sits there and screams, _"This is real! She's dead and this is all real!"_

A mirror. Ornate without being too gaudy, and dark in a delicate, fragile way. Just like her. Just like everything that ever made her beautiful and special and wonderful to him.

And it's broken.

"It was like that when I found it…" He hears Robin whisper, along with the gentle _hiss _of the beer can being opened, but both sounds just seem to fade away. They're unimportant. Everything is.

Everything is broken.

Then it hits him, a sudden and serious thought, the kind he's not used to. It hits him that hope is like an anchor, and yet you never realise how much it weighs until it's gone. Until there is that confirmation, as it snaps the chains that keep you tethered to solid ground and to reality. As it makes you see that it's not only the bad things in life that can hold you down.

The second stage.

And it's not acceptance, just something painfully close to it.

Little splashes of beer stain the purple stripe down the front of his uniform, and now he realises that he's shaking all over. Trembling like a stupid, little kid. Or a weak, frightened animal. It's so bad that Robin leans over suddenly and places his warm hand (No gloves) on the half-empty can.

"I'm sorry, Beastboy…God, I'm sorry…"

And he is. The changeling doesn't doubt that for a minute. But still, all of a sudden he's got this mad urge to pull his hand away and throw what's left of the alcohol into the Boy Wonder's cold, unrevealing eyes. He wants to just rip that mask right off of the bastard's face. Then maybe he'll really, truly be able to see that somebody else is mourning too.

Then maybe he'll stop wondering if anybody else is going to miss all the reading and all the meditating. All the petty arguments and loaned jackets in the rain, because that cloak of hers was always too damn thin and he hated the thought of her catching the cold. Even if he hid it under a macho, exaggerated gesture. Just like he always did. Way back when he thought they were safe, and everything good would always remain.

Only now it's too late to say anything, to take it all back or to tell the truth. Everything is broken, he's missing his anchor, and nothing is going to be right ever again.

God. He wonders if anybody else is going to miss the stillness…the silence that was hers alone…

The can falls and hits the table with a loud _thunk_, spewing lukewarm beer across the table, and in the gathering darkness he thinks for a second that it could have turned to blood.

Beastboy falls apart; everything inside him spills out into the cold room and he just cries and cries and cries. –_OhGodShe'sDead_- Like a stupid, little kid, he's just bawling. Howling like nobody's there.

"Beastboy!"

-_NoNoNoNoNoNo_-

"Beastboy! Stop!"

-_She'sDeadOhGodShe'sDead_-

And then something hard but smooth comes into contact with his face, and he reels back, only half aware that he's still even alive. Because it makes sense that once the anchor's gone there's nothing there to stop you just floating away.

Except this. And he's struggling to sit up again, becoming slowly conscious of the fact that Robin just slapped him right across the face. Not a punch, he notes, and yet there was nothing feminine or weak in the other boy's hand. It was cold, impersonal in the way a fist could never be.

It was, Beastboy decides (In between the swells of the receding pain), the most fitting thing the Boy Wonder could have just done. Cold and impersonal.

And yet…

Suddenly, he feels a pair of warm, strong arms wrap around him, pulling him back up from the edge of numbness again. It takes a few, stunned seconds to realise what's happening, and then another few just to make sure that it's not just a figment of his wild imagination. That the third stage isn't the swift drop into topsy-turvy madness.

Quietly, Robin speaks:

"Somebody told me once, long time ago, that the worst thing about death is that there's always somebody left behind…somebody who will always be hurting more…"

It's barely more than a whisper, and yet the changeling hears these words louder than anything else all night. They seem to boom and echo inside his head, beating down the anguished howls of the beast in pain. They make sense in a world where nothing else does.

"…when my parents died I was alone. But this time I'm not, and neither are you. And Star and Cyborg aren't either. We're all…y'know, in it together…" The masked boy trails off, uncomfortably. Like there are still things that need to be said, but he's afraid that words might diminish or fail them.

Because sometimes words just aren't good enough, and maybe that's why they're both holding onto each other in a graceless hug that's both incredibly awkward and yet comforting at the same time.

"Raven's dead." Beastboy whispers, knowing that it's the first time he's actually said it out loud.

"I know."

"I loved her." Another first.

"I know."

And that's just it. The failure of words, as they crash and break like waves against the enormity of it all. Something that neither of them knows how to correct.

So there's just silence, and stillness, broken only by the steady _drip drip drip _of lukewarm beer onto the well-worn carpet. As steadily it leaves a stain that won't ever come out, not that anyone will ever try and remove it. And there won't be anybody there to complain about boys and the messes they leave either.

Beastboy closes his eyes, pointedly ignoring the feel of the Boy Wonder's painfully calm heartbeat, and wills himself not to fall asleep here. And it's partly because he doesn't want to relive today in his dreams, but also because he can't stand that thought of what Cyborg would say if he caught the pair of them like this in the morning.

Suddenly, like a whisper in his mind, he can almost hear the retort, _"Looks like somebody needs to set their priorities straight…" _It bites into him, dripping with sarcasm, and then when the moment passes he feels the strangest sensation. Like a weight in his chest, where his heart used to be before it got shattered.

In his grieving mind, it occurs to him that it could almost be an anchor.

And, incredibly, he smiles.

- - -

ME: Ah, nothing like a bit of male bonding. Especially between Robin and Beastboy, since not a lot is said about their friendship in general.

Well, anyway, it'd be super-nice of you to leave a review, don't you think?


End file.
